Thus, if
the introduction of a boot-sewing machine lowers the price of boots
50 per cent, this can have no effect in lowering the money wages of
farm labourers; and, as a matter of fact, the fall in cost of boots
has sensibly improved the position of farm labourers. In the same way
the superior efficiency of carriers by railway over the old road
carriers has diminished the cost of coal and all articles (the bulky
ones most sensibly) in all parts of England. There thus arises the
instructive result that handicrafts in which there has been no
improvement in the last forty years have obtained a rise of real
wages (amounting in some cases to 50 per cent) by the improvements in
efficiency in all the trades around them.

To sum up: No man in ordinary business will give a price for anything
that he intends to sell again unless he expects to profit by selling
it again. No capitalist will pay a workman to make a table unless he
expects to sell the table for a sum somewhat exceeding the cost of
the wood and the workman's labour. It follows directly that the one
grand object of the workman, both as an individual, a trade, and a
class, should be to improve the efficiency of his labour. He may gain
something by combination and higgling for the turn of the market, but
the limit to what he can get is the value of his labour to his
employer.

In order to attain this improved efficiency the most important
practical aid is piecework. This has done much even in agriculture:
the turnip-hoer by the acre earns more, while he does his work at his
own time with more comfort to himself than the old day-labourer. What
is more important, the men who by head and hand are superior at
turnip-hoeing are able to do the work cheaper than ordinary
labourers, and turnip-hoeing thus falls entirely to the most
efficient hoers, whose efficiency thus again gets constantly
improved. There is no doubt to me that, if the London bricklayers
would arrange to work by contract, they would soon obtain more wages
without being compelled (as they imagine would be the case) to work
more severely or longer hours to gain those wages. If they were more
efficient, nothing could prevent the competition of employers soon
giving extra wages for extra value of work.

But it may, finally, be urged that there is surely such a thing as
over-production. If there is an over-production of boots, trade is
flat, the wholesale dealers find they are making no profit, they stop
their purchases, the workmen are thrown out of employ on a large
scale. To this the reply is that there is almost a necessary
alternation of up and down in every particular trade, whether the
efficiency of the workmen is high or low. If trade is good, the large
dealers will extend their purchases, and very commonly rather over-
extend their purchases: a reaction follows, and _vice versa_ when
trade is bad.

But it must be recollected over-production in all trades at once is
impossible: capital is now not buried in pots by our great joint-
stock banks; if one trade is at standstill the capital is carried to
the most remunerative use that the experienced bank secretaries can
discover. If agriculture is, as we have lately seen it, in a
depressed state for years, inasmuch as wheat is "over-produced" in
America till the price in England falls to 36s. per quarter (and
less), at which it hardly pays to produce it in England; this of
itself implies an enormous spur to all other industries--the real
cost of labour has in them fallen (for the labourer will not be able
to keep to himself the whole benefit of cheapened food)--the rate of
profit in all other industries has risen (_pro tanto_). If we ever do
arrive at a state when all the desires are fully satisfied--when
there is over-production in all industries--we shall have general
reduction in the hours of labour: "efficiency" will take that form.